The JNode project just reached a very important mileston. The SWING GUI starts to work. This is a very important milestone for the first almost pure java operating system.
SWING starts working under JNode
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
glad to see this project is progressing nicely, has a lot of potential as far as I am concerned
For those that don’t know Jnode is a surprisingly cool/low-level Java OS that has graphic drivers, input drivers, USB drivers, etc. all written in Java… I was honestly surprised at how advanced this team is and how far they have come… some really slick stuff!
I can see nothing on the JNode Web site to indicate that they have Swing working yet. AWT was announced to be working on the 26th of October, but as of the 27th of October, “Lightweight components (ie: SWING), are not yet working under JNode.
I can find nothing after this date to indicate that Swing is working yet.
Me neither, and I checked the site out as best I could.
On the other hand, it sure is cool technology. Makes me want to download it and give it a try!
“This is a very important milostone for the first almoast pure java operating system.”
Does anyone even proof read the postings before putting them up..
The AWT peers are implemented based on the Swing components in GNU Classpath. So basically what you see on the screenshots is Swing under the hood. We are currently working on the lightweight component support. At the moment a simple JFrame can be displayed directly. More to come soon especially if you find it interesting and join us…
Thank you for your interest!
Levente
in non-technical mumbo-jumbo …. thanks
So it can work on free java implementations like gcj or does it require sun java?
Since it’s almost 100% Java I have to ask: How slow is it?
Since it’s almost 100% Java I have to ask: How slow is it?
—————
are you still stuck in the 1990s? have you used java recently anyway?
Well, hard to say. As your question is irrelavant.
Why?
1) If you meant “Java programming language”, programming language does not has any speed. (compiled program does. the code doesn’t. the language itself, irrelevant).
2) If you meant “Java virtual machine”, there’s no “virtual machine” here. JNode runs Java bytecode as its native code.
2) If you meant “Java virtual machine”, there’s no “virtual machine” here. JNode runs Java bytecode as its native code.
Unless I am gravely wrong and confused, at some point the bytecode is going to have to be converted to machine code i.e. binary instructions.
Not saying it will be slower, just that you cannot get around the fact that bytecode will always be an intermediate form before machine code.
How fast is JNode?, well I had trouble playing Tetris on it, because it was too … fast. I must admit; I was also surprised, but having a fare native code compiler (jit) in place and performing as much of the graphics primitives on the video card, it is pretty good.
Ewout
The grammar’s perfect. There are some spelling mistakes though. If you’re going to be pedantic, you should at least be right. Otherwise you just look like a tit.
How can you possibly have three spelling mistakes in such a short stub article?
Eugenia, i’m a fan, but you’ve got to try proof-reading
Since it’s almost 100% Java I have to ask: How slow is it?
———–
har har. yuk yuk. Hey, I just heard this new joke – Why did the chicken cross the road?
And I have the latest poem – it starts “There was an old man from Nantucket…”
har har. I’m really cutting edge.
> in non-technical mumbo-jumbo …. thanks
It’s an operating system written almost(?) completely in Java. Since I have last looked at it, they might very well have removed the last non-Java parts. That is, not only the applications, but also the OS parts, drivers and such are written in Java. The virtual machine is (now probably, but not when I last looked at it) written in Java too, that is, implemented as a JIT compiler that is itself compiled to native code when the kernel is built.
That said, the distinction between kernel and application is blurred anyway in such a system, as no CPU protection is required for Java. There is no kernel mode / user mode, and the only thing that one could possibly call the “kernel” is just the big block of precompiled code that is first loaded during startup.
Why?
– Portability
– Development in Java is easier
– Higher-level protection than kernel/user mode
…
> So it can work on free java implementations
> like gcj or does it require sun java?
This thing is a Java implementation itself, and needs no other one to run. It runs on the bare hardware – the term “OS” is no fake.
That might have been too technical anyways, sorry. The simple explanation is “it uses Java as a programming language instead of C”. Java has protection built in, which makes user/kernel mode unnecessary. It is also easier to program than C (though not everone agrees to this – please don’t start a flame war!)
It also uses the JVM for higher portability, that is, all programs are distributed and stored as half-compiled code, not anymore readable but still not specialized for any specific hardware. The JVM can be implemented in Java too, and probably is. (C code is much less portable and thus usually avoided in such projects).
Apart from that, it is an OS as any other.